Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Wednesday afternoon, I will be appearing on HuffPo LIVE to discuss biphobia in a live video segment moderated by Josh Zepps.

The teaser is:B: The Most Despised Letter In LGBTQ? Bisexuals: Caught Between A Rock & A Queer Place"Bisexuality is marginalized by both straight and gay people alike, many of whom believe bisexuals are undecided, closeted or impostors in the queer community. Why can't bisexuals get any love?"

The link includes a "notify me when this starts" button. It is currently scheduled for 3:30 EDT. I am looking forward to this discussion and hope you will join in to listen and comment.

I also invite you to comment, ask questions, and discuss in this space as well as at HuffPo LIVE!

Monday, June 03, 2013

If you don’t know anything about my family, it looks like
your basic heteronormative nuclear family.
Mother, Father, Child. If you
stop at that superficial glance, then you’ll walk away thinking there’s nothing
different here.

If you look a little closer, you’ll see some clues that
we’re not what you expect. The
blue-purple-pink stripe on the front hood of my big black truck. The rainbow grommets in my belt. The “Bi Pride” and “I’m not the one that’s
confused” buttons, and the Bi Pride stickers, and the advertisement for last
year’s Pride In The Park on the visor, right below the ULC Minister parking
placard.

Come inside our apartment, and there’s a Bi Pride flag on
the kitchen wall and one of the bookcases has a top shelf packed with books
with titles like RePresenting Bisexualities, Bisexuality in the Lives of Men: Facts and Fictions, Becoming Visible, Power, Privilege, and
Difference, Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an
Invisible Community, Microaggressions and
Marginalities, and three
magazine boxes jammed with copies of academic articles.

My family is one of many LGBT families. It’s a mixed-orientation marriage, because
I’m bi and she’s straight. My child has
not declared a sexual orientation – has not come out as straight or bi or gay,
although he has stated he identifies as cismale. That’s one of the things about LGBT
families. Growing up, I was pressured to
be straight, long before things like sexual attraction had any meaning to
me. But we don’t have anything invested
in our child’s sexual orientation, and because of this, he’s free to discover
who he is in his own time. He presents
himself as an Ally, quite proudly, and he’s inherited activism from both sides
– an absolute refusal to allow injustice to continue if he has any ability to
stop it.

There’s still more to the equation, though. I use the word Queer a lot, for a couple
reasons. One is that it’s pronounceable,
another is that it does not lend itself to the ultimately minimizing and
divisive tactic of gluing more and more letters onto it until it’s even more
unwieldy, and yet another is that I’m using it in the sense of Queer Theory,
inserting the chisel of deconstructionism into the assumptions of Dominant
Culture... OK, I promise this was the only part of the article that will get
academic.

Through a Queer lens, my family is internally diverse, not
only in our sexual orientations, but in just about everything.

My partner has a deep family history that goes back to
Bohemia and, according to the family lore, ancient Egypt, as well as to the
Sauk and Fox Nation. I’m adopted, and my
knowledge of both my birth and adoptive families goes back a couple generations
at most (I know that my adoptive father’s grandparents came from Germany, that
my birth mother was part Cherokee, and that’s about it – my birth father is
unknowable.)

My son and I are Aspies (on the end of Autism Spectrum known
as Asperger’s, at least until the new DSM comes out) and my partner is
Neurotypical (her thought processes are similar to the majority).

We’re religiously mixed as well – she’s a Solitary Wiccan,
I’m a poorly practicing Zen Buddhist and panentheist Humanist who hangs out
with Atheists even though I believe in some form of a God, our child bills
himself as an Agnostic.

Until recently I was a strict ovo-lacto vegetarian while the
rest of the family ate fish and fowl – the demands of our biologies has led us
to start eating pork occasionally.

I read a lot of science fiction, some fantasy, some mystery,
some nonfiction. My partner prefers
nonfiction, but reads a little SF along the way. Our son is heavily into Lord of the Rings and
Roger Zelazny and the Hunger Games.
We’re all readers, though, so there’s a similarity.

In fact, all of the differences listed above are really
similarities. We’re readers, we all
participate in social networks and other online activities, we like flowers and
tostadas and the sight of an American eagle swooping low over the Mississippi. We have concerns about what we eat that go
beyond “What’s for lunch”. We have strong
views about religion and philosophy and politics. We’re concerned with mental health and with
how society reacts to people who don’t fit the mold, with the importance of all
different kinds of diversity. And
regardless of how far back the knowledge of our ancestors goes, we are
providing the roots for future generations.

My partner and I have similar taste in men (Johnny Depp,
Benedict Cumberbatch). Even though we’re
lockstepped, that doesn’t mean that our attractions went away when we got
handfasted (and, a year later, married, 21 years ago).

We don’t have to all be the same to be unified. It’s the differences that make it
interesting. But the nature of family is
such that in spite of the things that look like differences, we’re all in it
together, and no one can attack any one of us without the entire family coming
to our defense.

The LGBT community is a family, too. And one of the primary purposes of a family
is to provide for its members the ability to live a life of
integrity in a community of mutual support.

I’m proud of my Queer family. Any family that I am in will have to be an
LGBT family, because I’m filed under B in The Rainbow and when people say that
my family is not Queer, which some do, there’s only one thing I can say.

NOTE: Names have been changed in this story to protect the anonymity of the interviewees.

Rachel and her partner, Joseph, are the proud parents of two children, both 15 years old. Although they are an outwardly appearing straight couple, both identify as bisexual. Their identities have an impact on their relationship with each other, their parenting of their children, and other aspects of their lives.

“From the time I started being attracted to people, I’ve always been attracted to both genders,” Rachel recalls. “I was 13 or 14 when I heard the word ‘bisexual.’ That would have been 1971 or ’72. It was a kind of an ‘AHA!’ moment.”

Coming out to her partner was a different story.

“I was very afraid that I was about to screw up the first really important relationship I had! But Joseph came out to me as bisexual as well, so it was actually the best thing I ever did. The majority of my friends either said ‘So what?’ or ‘I knew that already.’ Or both. There were some negative reactions, but the positive ones far outweighed them.”

Since Rachel and Joseph both identify as bisexual, Rachel said, “I don’t think of our relationship as straight or gay. If anything, I think of it as bi. There’s actually been a lot of discussion of this on the bi political chat lines with the media coverage of same-gender marriage. To say a relationship is gay, lesbian, straight, or whatever is placing a label on something a person from outside the relationship has no right to do. The only thing we can say about a relationship is if it is a same-gender or mixed-gender, and even that is iffy.”

How would Rachel’s experience be different if she were in a similar relationship with a woman? Rachel sees few if any differences. “The fundamentals of a good relationship are the same whether it’s a same-gender or mixed-gender relationship,” she said.

While some bisexual people feel like outcasts in both the queer and the straight communities, or feel that they have to bridge the two worlds, Rachel said, “As an individual, I have generally positive experiences.”

Megan and her partner, Jennifer, have a different perspective as a couple in a long-term, committed same-sex relationship. Both bisexual as well, they are aware of the differences between what they are and what they appear to be to outsiders: lesbian parents.

“I knew that I was attracted to men first and slowly began to realize that I was also attracted to women,” Megan explained. “Because I am attracted to both men and women I think it probably took me a little longer to figure my sexuality. At the time [I was growing up], the only public model for bisexuality that I knew of was Boy George. I didn’t really identify with Boy George. To me being bisexual is not about politics or action; it is about desire.”

That desire eventually led Megan to a Bi Women and Friends discussion group where she met Jennifer. Once it became clear that Jennifer would be in Megan’s life for a while, Megan decided to come out to her family. “She was the impetus for it with my parents,” she explained. “I thought they might not really get it if I came out when I was with a man.”

The years leading up to the women creating a family together were full of mixed reactions from friends, family, and both the straight and the gay communities.

“In general there was acceptance from both queer and straight friends and family,” Megan noted. “I had one friend who sent a number of Bible verses and thought I was going to hell. I have found institutional biphobia from self-identified GLBT organizations. There seem to be a number of folks in the GLBT community who do not believe in the existence of bisexuals.” Megan also feels that “straight folks differentiate between bisexuals and other queers.”

Within the LGBT community, phobia against bisexuals is nothing new. Some gays and lesbians believe (as do many heterosexuals for that matter) that bisexuality is a phase leading to a person identifying as gay. Others are not sure where to place these so-called fence-sitters in their comprehension of sexuality. One of the most difficult stereotypes bisexual people must overcome, however, is the idea that being bisexual by definition means being non-monogamous.

“There is this mistaken idea out there amongst many homosexuals that non-monogamy is under the exclusive purview of bisexuals,” Megan said. “That somehow if you acknowledge that you are attracted to both women and men, then you must desire and actually have sex with both women and men. So it should follow if one likes both blonds and redheads that you must want to have sex with both blonds and redheads.”

Megan calls this outlook “ridiculous,” and says that non-monogamy is unrelated to any one point along the spectrum of sexuality.

Despite qualms others may have about them and their family, Megan and Jennifer are adamant about sexuality being “fundamental” to a person’s sense of self.

“My bisexuality informs how I view and experience the world,” Megan said. “I know in a very deep way that the world is not black or white, either/or, but rather that life and sexuality are expressed in a multitude of ways. I think this deep awakening of realizing that we are not in a dichotomous world has made me a much more creative person and a very good problem solver. My experience of being discriminated against within the GLBT community has heightened my sensitivities to others being discriminated against.

Fifteen years after they met, the couple are raising two sons, ages 4 and 7. Megan says that parenting as a bisexual couple “helps me let my kids know that there are many different ideas for how to do things. I encourage them to give their ideas. We talk about not discriminating against other folks, but rather to be affirming and welcoming.”

Since their children are still young, Megan and Jennifer have held off on explaining the romantic side of their relationship to their sons. But they have taught them about different families.

“They know that there are all kinds of families out there and that not everyone knows that it’s okay to have families with two moms,” Megan said. Attending Pride and other events in the LGBT community has helped further their sons’ education; their parents explain beforehand that “there will be more families with two moms and two dads.”

As families like Rachel and Joseph’s, as well as Megan and Jennifer’s, continue to grow, this type of education will hopefully become more widespread for children from all households.

This article was originally written about five years ago for Rainbow Rumpus – a magazine for youth with LGBT Parents.

Community Definition of Bisexuality

“Bisexual - A person whose enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction is to other people of various sexes and/or gender identities. Individuals may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime.”

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